I just took a quick look at the save and I think that some things should be better balanced. So we will all agree that the best troops are produced in fortresses (since citadels are practically unavailable) and I noticed that most factions have 2 or 3 fortresses but the Teutonic Order has 4. On the other hand England has only Nothingam as fortress and Novgorod has none!

England has a massive advantage already on sea and likely their best troops are ships and not just troops. However, England has alot of very good targets for fortresses. Bordeaux and Hamburg already being very close at the start and at the coast, England should be able to retrieve fortresses but can definently play without them. I am however considering upgrading some militairy buildings for them.

TO really needs his fortresses, I was considering giving Turku to Novgorod but ill come to that in a sec. Note that TO his fortresses are very spread out and for a faction in such a hard position as theirs they kinda need it.

So Novgorod has a really hard time getting fortresses overall. I was thinking of giving them Turku but figured it either makes Novgorod their position so strong that they can capture everything up until Riga easily, or TO just takes Turku. So instead of that, I gave Novgorod 0 fortresses but upgraded alot of militairy buildings to drill squares, not only do they safe a ton of cash with this, their early recruitment gets a huge boost from this as other factions still need to make those drill squares

Ok but I just have a little concern that it will have a negative impact in the long run, after the starting armies have to be rebuilt. I think Novgorod should also have at least 1 fortress, because of some units, but it s not a big deal I guess.